Mick’s story

“The judgment came out in our favour and Barnardo’s were directed to attempt conciliating the matter. Of course what this meant was private negotiations and settlement offers. More importantly it meant there would be no public acknowledgement on their part and any financial settlement would remain confidential. In essence we had allowed Barnardo’s to purchase our silence.

“I resigned from the NSW Police Force shortly after being promoted to Detective Sergeant in 1996. I had served almost 20 years but I was tired and emotionally drained after Holyoak was convicted. I enrolled at university and supplemented my income by being a consultant to television drama productions about cops like Wildside, White Collar Blue, Young Lions, Blackjack and Small Claims.”

The August 2004 SCARC report; Forgotten Australians, revealed that as many as 500,000 Australians experienced institutional or out-of-home care as children. The SARC Inquiry, Committee Hansard 4 February 2004 (p.30) summed up the inevitable results of that state-sponsored childhood nurturing:

… institutional abuse does not stop when we age out of the system. Once in contact with the juvenile justice system we have a 90 per cent chance of becoming adult criminals. We have a one in three chance of leaving care at 16 as girls pregnant or already with child. We have a one in two chance of being homeless within that first year. Only one in 100 of us will get to university, but one in three of us will have attempted suicide. We are also highly likely to wind up addicted to drugs, engaged in prostitution, unemployed, mentally ill or incapable of sustaining loving relationships.